storage

As expected, the cash market used the bullish futures reactionto Wednesday afternoon’s storage report as a springboard foracross-the-board gains of about a dime or more Thursday. But a latescreen retreat, continued lack of cooling load in northern marketareas and the usual dropoff in weekend demand raised doubts aboutany further increases today.

El Paso declared an Unauthorized Overpull Penalty situationTuesday effective until further notice. Washington Ranch StorageField is experiencing maximum withdrawals, the pipeline said, andit will limit scheduled volumes at underperforming interconnects toensure system integrity.

Northwest continued to bar any on-system balancing or bankingMonday, saying its operational flexibility was “severely limited”by storage accounts being almost full.

Non-affiliate marketers and producers are concerned that KochGateway Pipeline’s proposed new auction process for itsinterruptible storage service (ISS) and its parking and lendingservice (PAL) will discriminate in favor of the pipeline’smarketing affiliate.

As if crashing oil prices, fresh weather forecasts and the release of storage data were not enough Wednesday, the natural gas futures market was rocked again Thursday by a report of a pipeline rupture in the Gulf of Mexico (see related story this issue). Although the accident has since been dubbed a non-event, it produced a dramatic, if brief, spike in prices as commercial traders loaded up on contracts only to dump them just minutes later.

Union Gas Storage & Transportation Services is holding anopen season on long-term firm transportation for upstream,downstream and bundled options through Sept. 1. With the openseason results, Union Gas plans to request an expansion of itsoperations to the Ontario Energy Board later this year. All bidsand/or requests for services have to be received by 5 p.m. Sept. 1.Contact Scott Hubert at (519) 358-4012 for information.

Fueled by yet another bullish storage report released Wednesdayafternoon that dovetailed with an increasingly optimistic technicaloutlook, natural gas futures rocketed higher yesterday as localsand commercial traders reentered the market as buyers. However,after cresting near the all-time prompt month high of $4.60 earlyin the afternoon, the July contract was hit with a light wave ofprofit taking into the close. Nevertheless, July finished with aneat 17.3 cents gain to $4.551.

Fueled by constructive storage data and higher Access andover-the-counter prices, natural gas futures continued higheryesterday, as traders continue to exhibit a seemingly insatiableappetite for long positions. The June contract advanced 16.3 centsto close at $4.236.

Marking an evolution from a gas supply and storage partnershipforged last year, Peoples Energy Corp. and Enron North AmericaCorp. (ENA) announced plans last week to move into the Chicagopower generation market. The two companies said the jointly plan tocreate a Chicago portfolio of at least 800 MW.